Soroc Advert - September 1978
From Byte - The Small Systems Journal
The Soroc IQ120
Soroc was founded in Anaheim, California, in 1975 by five ex-employees of Lear Siegler Incorporated (LSI), another terminal manufacturer[1].
Various sources[2] suggest that the company name was an anagram of the name Coors, which seems plausible as the logo is the top of an open can of beer, from the olden days of 1970s ring-pulls.
The advert is for the company's IQ120 - a "smart" terminal which included support for protected fields - as useful for data entry - and came with a numeric keypad.
Another advert for the IQ120, from the year before. From Byte, September 1977
The IQ120 retailed for $995, or about £4,980 in 2024, with discounts available for bulk buys. Apparently the low price made them popular with early computer users, who would need a serial terminal to communicate with many of the switch-and-light micros of the day.
As a company, Soroc is still going as a general-purpose technology company, although this Soroc actually formed out of a company that was started in 1981 to distribute the company's terminals in Canada[3][4].
Date created: 22 March 2024
Sources
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